


Secrets

by quicksilverjimon (quicksilvermalec), quicksilvermalec



Series: TMI Headcanons [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, IT'S BEAUTIFUL, Izzy doesn't know anything about trans people, Izzy is an amazing sister, Izzy loves Alec so much, Izzy loves Jace so much, Jace and Alec are great, M/M, Trans Alec Lightwood, Trans Character, Trans Jace Lightwood, Trans Male Character, Trans!Alec, Trans!Jace, but she does an amazing job of accepting Jace and Alec anyway, enjoy, izzy is the best, like so fuckin much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilverjimon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilvermalec
Summary: “I’m so sorry, Allie!” she cried, trying to help her in any way she could.“Don’t. Call me that,” Apparently-Alec snapped.Young-Isabelle looked confused. “I’m… sorry, Alexandra?”Apparently-Alec sighed. “Don’t call me that, either.”***Alec has a secret. Isabelle is amazing. Clary and Simon just love Alec so much.Headcanon: trans!Alec





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> I love this idea. I've had it for so long and I finally wrote it. I hope you enjoy it.

Alec had a secret.

Alec had had many secrets over the course of his life – his sexuality, his crush on Jace, Magnus – but this was a somewhat different secret, and he didn’t want to keep it anymore.

So one day he went to his group of friends (minus Isabelle) and he said, “there’s something I want you to know, but it will be easier to explain if I show you.”

They were confused, but they followed him to the security room anyway. Only Jace, Alec, and Izzy had ever been in there before – it was a room with monitors covering every space, showing feeds from the cameras in almost every room in the Institute.

Alec threw himself into a spinny chair next to Izzy and said, “hey, Iz, can you pull the security feeds in the training room from March 18th of ’04 around 3pm?”

She smiled gently up at him. “So we’re doing that, huh?” she asked kindly.

Alec just nodded, and then Izzy nodded. She opened the file.

On the screen, there were two girls sparring. One of them looked like a slightly younger Isabelle and one of them looked like she was about two years younger than the older one.

“Who’s Izzy sparring with?” Clary asked, pointing at the shorter girl on the screen. Alec pulled her hand away from the monitor.

“Actually,” he informed her, “that’s Isabelle.” He indicated the younger girl, the one Clary had just been pointing at.

“Then who’s that?” Clary asked, pointing at Not-Isabelle.

“That,” Alec told her grimly, “is me.”

Clary’s jaw hung open, but she didn’t say anything.

Onscreen, the shorter girl smacked the other girl’s shin pretty hard with a bo staff. She held up a hand in a ‘time out’ gesture and cupped her other hand over her leg. “By the- _fuck_ , Isabelle!” she shouted.

Young-Isabelle dropped her staff and rushed over to Apparently-Alec. “I’m so sorry, Allie!” she cried, trying to help her in any way she could.

“ _Don’t_. Call me that,” Apparently-Alec snapped.

Young-Isabelle looked confused. “I’m… sorry, Alexandra?”

Apparently-Alec sighed. “Don’t call me that, either.”

“Then what do you want to be called?”

“I don’t want to be Allie. I don’t want to be Alexandra. I want… I want to be _Alexander._ I’m supposed to be a- a boy, but my body doesn’t seem to agree with me.”

Young-Izzy shook herself. “Well… do you want to tell Jade? I mean, since you’re going to be _parabatai_ , she should know everything about you-”

“Jade knows,” Alec groaned, leaning back on his arm on the floor. “Jade is… is like me. Jade is Jace, now.”

“You…” Young-Izzy seemed to be having trouble processing that information, but then her face broke out into a huge smile. “You mean I have brothers? I’ve always wanted brothers!”

Just then, another girl with golden hair in a pixie cut appeared at the doorway. That must have been Jace. Young-Izzy didn’t notice him, but Alec did.

Young-Izzy stuck her hand out to her brother. Alec took it gratefully. “Hello, Izzy,” he said. “I’m Alec, and I use he, him, and his pronouns.”

“Hey, Iz,” called the golden-haired boy in the doorway. Young-Izzy turned to look at him. “I’m Jace. He/him/his, please and thank you.”

Young-Izzy smiled at the two of them. “Hi, Jace and Alec, my awesome brothers. I’m Isabelle, she/her/hers. It’s great to meet you.”

Alec smiled so widely from where he was lounging that it seemed to light up the entire room. He launched himself at his sister and hugged her. “I love you so much, Izzy.”

Izzy turned off the monitor and Alec continued the story.

“I eventually came out to my parents. I had been kind of ambiguous up to that point (I hadn’t really had any crushes, which is why my parents were so surprised and confused to discover that I’m gay), but they didn’t know anything about it, so they weren’t really that bad about it, surprisingly. They petitioned the Clave for a waiver to the mundane medicine rule so Jace and I could take testosterone, but mastectomy, hysterectomy or vaginectomy, and phalloplasty or metoidioplasty are all very much against the Law. So I bind, I pack, but that’s about all I can do. When I train, Isabelle makes me wear a sports bra because she’s… the fucking greatest sister on earth. And yeah, that’s about it.”

Then he look a deep breath and launched into a different aspect of his story.

“I never thought that I could be… beautiful. I never thought that ‘beautiful’ could be a gender-neutral term. Back when I used to look like Isabelle, I wanted to be beautiful because I thought that would make me ‘normal’, so that I could be a normal girl instead of- instead of a freak. In some ways, sometimes I wish I’d stayed a straight woman instead of a gay man, because everything about being gay and trans is horrible and prejudiced and cruel and I hate every second of it.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself from his tirade-slash-confession.

“And then there was Magnus. And Magnus told me every day that I _was_ beautiful, and even if I didn’t fucking believe it, it was nice to hear. And being beautiful sort of became something that I could attain, like if I did it right, I could be… more than this.” He waved his hands vaguely at his body. “Because on top of the dysphoria I’ve been experiencing since I was maybe twelve, I’ve also always had serious body issues. I never felt right as a woman and I never looked right as a man and I’ve just always been such a… disaster. Really, just a complete mess. I’m- I’m a weapon. That’s all I can really see myself as, no matter what my stupid boyfriend tells me. I’m designed to destroy, so I do. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do anything else. I don’t know.”

And then he was silent, and it was silent for a long time, the air carrying the weight of all the things that had been ingrained in him over the years, things he’d wanted to hide from everyone forever.

Clary was the first one who spoke. “Goddammit, Alec,” she whispered, then moved over to him to hug him. “You’re as bad as Jace. You fucking- god, I just want to protect you right now.”

“You? Protect me? You’re like an inch tall and 2% muscle.” He smiled just a little so she knew he was joking.

She didn’t really have a response to that, so she just hugged him again. “You know we love you, right Alec?”

Alec smiled and nodded as Simon murmured his agreement.

Simon looked around, then said, “oh, wait. Fray and I are the only ones here who didn’t know this already, aren’t we? But yeah, we love the two of you anyway.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you are. But it’s not because I didn’t want you to know, only because I wasn’t sure how to have that conversation. And this is entirely for me. I know it doesn’t change anything. I know my worth. I’m not doing this because I need your approval. I just don’t want to have any more secrets. They’re not worth my energy.”

Magnus placed a hand on his back. “I know, love. I know. I love you.” Alec twisted to look at him and leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“I love you too.”


End file.
